


On the Importance of Personal Grooming Habits

by Brigantine



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-19
Updated: 2011-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigantine/pseuds/Brigantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser discovers something that makes it that much harder to keep his hands to himself.  Written for the DS Flashfiction Vital Clue challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Importance of Personal Grooming Habits

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: The author was highly caffeinated at the time of writing.

It was early in the investigation yet, but it had been a frustrating morning. Fraser and Ray were sure that Danagher guy was guilty, but he was slick, and they had no good reason so far to grab him. Certainly nothing that would stick. Still, Ray was sure that all they needed was a little something, just a chink in the guy's armor, and maybe they could work that open into something bigger. For now, Ray's brain needed food, and that meant leftovers from last night.

The bathroom door opened and Fraser walked out, bleating, "Ray. Ray…" Ray had just shifted from poking irritatedly at the Go button and muttering curses at his microwave to the embarrassing recollection that he'd unplugged the stupid thing this morning so that he could have toast. Historically, trying to plug the two machines into the same outlet at the same time had resulted in a circuit breaker clicking itself off in self-defense, leading to swearing and gnashing of teeth on Ray's part, and, depending on the time of day, sudden darkness. It was what he got for living in a cheap building.

"Ray… Ray…" There was an edge of accusation in Fraser's voice.

Ray jammed the microwave's plug into the wall and turned. _"What?"_

Fraser stood on the living room side of the kitchen cutaway with his palms down on the counter, looking confused and kind of annoyed and demanded, bizarrely, "Ray, where are your hair products?" in the same tone of voice Ray used when he was asking a suspect where he'd hidden the money from a bank heist.

Ray blinked and shoved a plate of leftover chicken potstickers into the microwave. "My which? Since when d'you need hair goop, and what were you doing rummaging around in my drawers? Okay, that didn't come out--" He felt himself turning pink, but Fraser was too busy interrupting to notice.

"Aside from the ubiquitous items such as shampoo and conditioner, there's nothing," Fraser asserted, and again it sounded as though he was _vexed_ , as though a perp had _lied_ to him. "No gel, no spray, no…" Fraser flapped a hand toward Ray's hair. "…whatever you use to make your hair experimental."

Ray shrugged, and squinted in at the steaming potstickers. "I quit using it."

Fraser countered huffily, "I hardly think that's likely, given the current vertical state of your hair."

Ray snickered, opened the microwave, and poked at their lunch. "Kettle's almost on the boil, Fraser, you wanna argue about my hair, or get that?" He pulled out the plate as Fraser strode around the cutaway into the kitchen. Ray set the potstickers on the counter, and jiggled the gently burbling pan of leftover moo goo gai pan on the stove. He shoved a bowl of cold steamed rice into the microwave. "What's got your knickers in a twist over the state of my goldie locks all of a sudden, anyway?"

"My knickers are not--I was merely in your bathroom, I was washing my hands, is all, and I wondered, well…" and here Fraser had the decency to look embarrassed, because Ray was pretty sure he'd left all his cabinet doors closed, and it shouldn't be that hard for a smart guy like Fraser to find the soap, what with it sitting there on the sink, all out in the open and not disguised as something else.

"You were wondering, and you got snoopy, like the nosy little Mountie that you are," Ray finished gleefully.

Fraser drew himself up straight, getting ready to be offended, but then he spilled his tea, and then while he was apologizing and flailing for a towel to soak up the mess he spilled Ray's coffee. "Oh, hell." Fraser drooped there, deflated and woebegone with tea sloshed all down one leg of his jeans, and coffee splattered over the linoleum. "I just… " He sighed heavily.

Ray took pity. "I used to use it to keep my hair flat," he told Fraser. He took the stained and soggy towel from Fraser's hand, tossed it into the sink, and pulled off a long stretch of paper towels, tossing them onto the puddle on the floor in a wad and wiping them about with one foot. "But lately I got to thinking it was too much trouble, so I gave it up."

Fraser blinked at him. "So… when we met…?"

"I was an addict, Benton," Ray confesses. "A pathetic, usery hair-goo addict. Sad, I know, but I've reformed." He stirred the rice, and licked at the bits of it stuck to the spoon. Fraser didn't chastize him for it. He just _watched_ while Ray licked. Interesting.

"Look, when I was a kid unless I had a buzz cut or let my hair grow out seriously long, I looked like I'd just stuck my finger in a light socket. That was not the look I wanted when I was trying to get into the Academy." He bent to collect the soggy paper towel mess and tossed it into the trash under the sink. "But these days, I got a new name and a new life going, so I figure, hey, why all the fuss? I got a certain boyish charm here. You wanna tell me why this is a big deal all of a sudden?"

Fraser shook his head, clamming up the way he always did when anyone threw him for a loop. Or caught him with his metaphorical hand in the proverbial cookie jar. "I was merely curious, Ray."

"Yeah? You been obsessin' about my hair a lot there, Benton buddy?"

 _"No,"_ Fraser protested hotly, as though Ray had just accused him of sliding down the consulate banister in his underwear. "No, I have not, why would I obsess over your hair, Ray? What a ridiculous--"

"Whoa, whoa, easy there, no need to bust a blood vessel." Ray raised his hands placatingly. "No harm done." It was a rookie mistake, Fraser getting all worked up that way, when Ray had interrogated guys like Jimmy the Ferret, and Guido the Fish, guys twice Ray's size who had eventually buckled and told Ray everything he wanted to know. Fraser ought to have learned better by now. Obviously, the Mountie wasn't thinking with his logical brain today. Probably not enough bark in his diet.

Ray sidled up next to Fraser, who wavered a moment, then cleared his throat and stood his ground, which might have been more impressive if he wasn't flushing hot pink all the way up from his shirt collar to his hairline.

"You can touch my hair," Ray offered silkily.

Fraser goggled and flushed even pinker. "I--erk."

"Call it imperious research," Ray suggested. He leaned toward Fraser invitingly, half worried that pushing this might be an incredibly stupid idea, and half convinced that this was the chance of a lifetime to find out if maybe he did have a snowball's hope, and if it was that last thing, he'd be a moron not to grab it with both hands. "You wanna know if I'm fibbing about the goo, go ahead and see if it feels like I got gel in there."

"Um..." Fraser dithered, but to Ray's surprise and a hell of a lot of relief, he felt Fraser's fingers in his hair, tentative at first, and then digging deeper, gently rubbing over his scalp, carding Ray's hair between his fingers. The sensations sent a happy zing all the way from his hair down to his toes, and it was all Ray could do not to start thumping one foot on the floor like a hound dog.

As it was he couldn't keep himself from bumping up into Fraser's hands, the curve of Fraser's palms warm against his scalp. Ray stood up straight and looked at him. They were standing awfully close, but neither backed away. Ray huffed nervously, "Um, that felt real nice Fraser, I--I mean, are you satisfied that, y'know, I wasn't fibbing?"

"Yes. Yes, I can see that--ah..." Fraser was standing there with his hands still in Ray's hair, and he cleared his throat loudly and lifted his hands away, but he didn't seem to know what to do with them, as though they still wanted to be touching Ray. "You know, er, I've found, Ray, that whenever I've gone in for a haircut, a regulation haircut, that is, because, erm, we have to have our hair cut, it, it's always a rather pleasant sensual, I mean, it's, well--d'you want to feel my hair, Ray? Oh dear, I mean..." Fraser flailed a little and started to back off in a panic.

"Yes," Ray said firmly. He followed Fraser, backing him up against the counter. "Yes, I do. I want to put my hands in your hair, Fraser. I want to touch your skin, and kiss your lips. I wanna fondle your ears and hold your hand, and lick your neck. I want, Fraser, I want, and I'm thinking so do you. I--"

But he never got to finish, because Fraser suddenly lunged forward, grabbed Ray with both hands around his waist, and planted a solid one on him, with apparently no intent of letting loose any time soon. Ray wasted a half a second on being surprised, then crawled up Fraser and clung like a monkey, his hands twisted in Fraser's worn flannel shirt, until the moo goo gai pan started hissing dangerously on the stove, and then Ray blindly reached out, grabbed it and flung it into the sink, without ever letting go of Fraser.

Fraser, startled by the racket in the sink and the glurping sound of their lunch sloshing in the pot, pulled away with a panted, "Ray?"

Ray turned off the burner without even looking and muttered impatiently, "What?" He began gnawing on Fraser's left earlobe.

Fraser made an urgent noise, shifted his grip, and clenched his hands, digging his fingers into Ray's ass.

"Holy crap," Ray growled.

Fraser growled right back and shoved his hips forward into Ray's crotch, and Ray could feel some _serious_ intent going on there behind the fly of Fraser's jeans. Ray grunted into Fraser's ear, "Hallelujah."

Fraser, the bastard, started to laugh.

"What is so funny?" Ray slid down until he was flat-booted on the floor again, but he didn't give up his grip on the back of Fraser's shirt, and Fraser, giggling like a loony, didn't budge an inch in his annexation of Ray's backside.

Aside from Fraser being a freak, Ray assumed he must have a good reason for interrupting what promised to be a very fine makeout session, so he tried to hold his temper and not strangle the guy. Also, he figured strangling one's partner generally tended to put the kebash on further making out, and Ray had _plans,_ so there was that.

"Shoe polish," Fraser grinned, still clinging to Ray's back pockets. "Leo Danagher said he was home all evening polishing his shoes, but he only had _black_ shoe polish in his closet. One _new,_ unopened can of black shoe polish!"

The light went on in Ray's brain as he did a mental catalog of Leo Danagher's messy bedroom closet. "All his dress shoes were brown. Except for that pair of white ones, which, who wears white loafers, that was just embarrassing. So where are his black shoes?" Ray shook his head, reluctant to rain on Fraser's parade. "It's not exactly an alibi-buster--wait..."

Fraser's grin threatened to split his face in half. It was gorgeous and goofy, and really, really distracting on account of making Ray want to rub himself up against Fraser's hip in an untoward manner, which he appeared to be already doing, but what the hell, he was provoked, and Fraser didn't seem to mind at all, given that he'd angled his thigh out a little bit so Ray could get better friction. "He said he stopped by Kurtz's... oooff, that's good... shoe repair on the way home from work to get the polish, thereby extending his alibi another twenty minutes on account of... right there buddy, right, yeah... on account of it being out of the way, but Kurtz closes at _4:00_ on Fridays!"

"Exactly, Ray!" Fraser nodded ecstatically and squeezed Ray's ass some more.

Ray stopped rubbing himself - reluctantly, but this was for Truth, Justice, and Miss Ginger O'Leary, who had been the late Bill Fisher's secretary for 17 years, and had been very fond of him - and put his hands on Fraser's shoulders. "Listen, we gotta--I mean, I am all for gettin' jiggy with our bad selves right here, right now, believe me, but--"

"Right you are Ray," Fraser cricked his neck decisively. "We have a murderer to apprehend." He gave Ray's ass one last firm squeeze, like a place marker, and licked his lower lip.

Then he turned and strode, in a constricted sort of way, toward Ray's front door, tucking his shirt back into this jeans and declaring, "To the Batmobile!"

Ray grabbed his keys off the counter. "I need to start monitoring your television viewing."

"Understood. Erm, Ray, I didn't happen to notice any condoms or personal lubrication products in your bathroom," Fraser commented over his shoulder.

"Whoa, what?"

Fraser jittered near the door, rubbing his left eyebrow distractedly. "Merely an observation."

"I'll make a list," Ray replied, quickly dumping the cooling chicken potstickers into a bowl to take with so they didn't totally miss lunch, and wondering how the hell either of them would make it down two flights of stairs in their current condition without damaging their private manliness. Jeez, the stuff they put up with for the sake of law and order.

\--#--


End file.
